Korean Vets Still Waiting For Parade

COCOA BEACH — Now that Vietnam veterans have received long-overdue recognition for their service, the Korean War has become America's forgotten war to some of those who fought it.

About 65 men who flew B-26s to bomb and strafe North Korean supply lines and troops, as members of the famous Grim Reapers 13th Bomb Squadron, are holding their second annual reunion today and tomorrow at the Holiday Inn, 1300 N. Atlantic Ave. They came from 28 states, including California, and from Japan. About 40 wives also are attending.

Charles Hinton, 58, of 585 Teakwood Ave., Satellite Beach, president of the group, said Korean War veterans suffered the same indifference when they returned home that Vietnam veterans experienced.

''But where is the Korean War monument?'' he asked. ''Ten years later, the Viet vets got to march down Fifth Avenue and in Washington. The Korean vets still haven't.''

He said, ''It's not that I want a parade,'' but said the lack of recognition shows the nation did not understand or appreciate the job done by American servicemen in Korea.

''We lost 36,000 to 50,000 men in three years in Korea, depending on whose figures you use,'' he said. ''There are 50,000 names on the Vietnam monument they just put up in Washington, for a war that lasted 12 years.''

''Vietnam was a television war,'' he said. ''That did not happen in Korea. Even the news magazines didn't give it much coverage. Look at Time magazine files in the library sometime. They used to give the war a little article, just a few inches long, once a week.''

Hinton and others at the reunion recalled that the United States called the Korean War a police action. They said it came too soon after World War II to rouse American patriotism.

Monte Ballew, 60, of San Antonio, who retired as a colonel in 1977 with 32 years of service, said he ''felt the same way the Vietnam vets felt'' when he came home from Korea.

''Most Americans didn't understand why we were in Korea, why we were committed to the war.''

''No war is ever forgotten,'' he said. ''I think the Korean veterans got the recognition they deserved. But coming so closely after World War II, Korea was overshadowed. It wasn't quite the same as World War II, when it was 'anything for the boys.' ''

But Fortney's wife, Marian, agreed with Hinton.

''I stayed in Wisconsin while Bob was in Korea,'' she said. ''I felt very much as though it was a forgotten war. People would say, 'He's in Korea? Where's that? What's he doing over there?' ''

Thursday afternoon the Grim Reapers wore red caps bearing insignia of a skeleton holding a bloody scythe as they swapped war stories. It was the first time many had seen each other in more than 30 years.

Ballew, the first pilot to be shot down in the Korean War, had one of the most memorable stories.

It was June 27, 1950. America had entered the war two days earlier. Ballew and eight other pilots took off on their first mission of the war from Ashiya, Japan. They were told to ''hit targets of opportunity'' just north of Seoul, South Korean.

''We found a troop train in the yards at Kaesong,'' Ballew said. ''We had dropped all our bombs and rockets and were using up our .50-caliber ammunition when we were hit by a hail of small arms fire.

''I lost the right engine and three jugs cylinders on the left. I knew we couldn't make it back to Ashiya. It looked like we would have to bail out.''

His navigator, who had been a prisoner in World War II, protested, saying he was wearing loafers and didn't want to be a prisoner ''without a decent pair of shoes.''

So Ballew found an airstrip at Suwon and crash-landed the twin-engine B-26 without any deaths.

''We were lucky,'' he said. ''The North Koreans overran the Suwon airfield in the next couple of days.''

Don Mathews of Melbourne, a retired colonel who had been a navigator, recalled, ''We lost a lot of planes over there, because we'd go down on a train or a truck convoy at 200 or 300 feet or lower. Fortney went in so low that he sometimes came back with mud on his plane that was splashed up from his rockets.''

Fortney smiled when he recalled one such flight. ''When you look down at night and see a light, it's usually just a dot,'' he said. ''But if you're low enough that dot will become two headlights.

''One night I went down on some trucks. I saw two headlights and dropped a bomb. A bomb becomes armed by a little fan in it, and it takes about 100 feet of drop for it to be armed. Mine didn't go off. I was too low. That one bothered me a little.''

Hinton said the Grim Reapers go back to World War I, when members of the 13th Squadron flew DH-4 and Spad biplanes over Europe.

''It was deactivated after World War I, but was back on the rolls in Southeast Asia in World War II, and was in Japan when the Korean War broke out.''

The unit was activated again during the Vietnam War but was phased out again when that conflict ended.